Secret Teacher: do they know it"s Christmas?

Has Scrooge taken over your college? Secret Instructor is desperate to see festive cheer return to the classroom. Photograph: Larry Lilac/Alamy.

Are we receiving it appropriate for our kids? I discover myself asking this query a lot more regularly than ever. I am both a mother of a five-yr-old and a teacher of year two youngsters. I appreciate each my roles but I sometimes wonder if I am actually doing the ideal for the young children.

One instance of this is Christmas. When I was at college, I keep in mind this time of year becoming total of excitement. A time when I proudly brought residence a plastic bag complete of tat and glitter to place on our Christmas tree at the end of phrase. A time when a toilet roll tube Christmas cracker was a present that every mother or father expected their youngster to bring property with them.

And now? My son brought property a Christmas card that consisted of a piece of white card folded in half which had been decorated with images from clipart. It had a typed message on the back about the learning goals covered in the job. Disappointing.

The other thing in his guide bag was an ‘Investigating Christmas cards’ worksheet. The directions at the prime asked for the young children to type Christmas cards into sacred and secular groups. No glitter, no wonky paper lantern or cotton wool ball snowman and as a result no proud minute when my son could present these objects to me. I felt disappointment. What had occurred to Christmas at school?

Of program, I know only also nicely what has occurred to Christmas at college. At the end of phrase the priority in my personal classroom was also not going to be Christmas. As in all colleges, the teachers in my school had been asked to seem at our Assessing Pupils Progress (APP) benefits to highlight weak places.

I had mentioned there was a weak location inside fractions within my very own class. So, in a desperate try to revive Christmas, I planned to let the youngsters make folded snowflakes and integrate the concept of quarters within the activity. Afterall, I know that nowadays I couldn’t just make snowflakes with out there currently being some educational value to them. Interestingly though, my kids watched in awe as I produced my snowflake.

These are academic kids with supportive and enthusiastic dad and mom nevertheless, these children had plainly never produced a paper snowflake prior to! And to consider that I had been anxious that they would be bored by this activity. Far from it.

Their earlier classrooms have been bland and bare with no proof of Christmas in them. Very in contrast to the classroom I had discovered in as a little one. Also really as opposed to my classroom in my 1st teaching occupation which, only 14 years ago, had allowed seasonal festivities in. My class loved the snowflake activity and were surprised by their creations. I am not certain how interested they were in my maths understanding aim but I kept reminding them of it just in situation any individual walked in and saw small pieces of paper scattered all over the place and wondered why.

Then there are the Christmas plays. Each yr I watch our college play with tears in my eyes imagining how proud the mothers and fathers will really feel when they watch their youngsters. Nevertheless, this yr, I was a parent of a little one in year one. It genuinely opened my eyes to how much we expect from our kids.

I guess a crumpled paper star decoration will not tick the appropriate boxes when parents are asked to full the Ofsted parent-see questionnaire, whereas a ‘production’ that Andrew Lloyd Webber would be proud of may possibly just sway them to decide on that ‘high achieving’ choice.

The ‘KS1 production’ I witnessed was on par with a year six overall performance 25 years ago. Even the new terminology of a ‘production’ demonstrates increased requirements. My husband asked if this was the Simon Cowell effect. Who knows. All I know is that we are squeezing childhood out of kids and Christmas is a excellent way to demonstrate my level.

Do not get me wrong, I know that college should be about understanding, but there employed to be so much more to understand from school. Perhaps I am hunting back with rose-tinted spectacles or possibly I am just feeling exhausted obtaining had to program for hours on end for the coming phrase currently.

At least the youngsters get a break at Christmas. Or possibly not. My son came house with 19 sounds to discover in excess of the holidays. Now, even with the pre-Ofsted schooling I had some years ago, my calculations say that we couldn’t even discover each spelling pattern if we work on 1 a day, like Christmas Day.

I really feel disappointment, regret and failure for the young children at Christmas time. They are missing out and that tends to make me really feel so unhappy. This is notably the situation in my college as we are expecting Ofsted any time and wouldn’t want to be noticed to be permitting Christmas to get in the way of ‘rapid progress’. So my question nevertheless stands. Are we getting it right for our children?

This week’s Secret Instructor works at a principal college in the south east of England.

• Would you like to be the next Secret Instructor? Received an thought for an anonymous blog submit about the trials, tribulations and frustrations of college life? Get in touch: kerry.eustice@theguardian.com.

Secret Teacher: do they know it"s Christmas?

French or Chinese? Whichever you learn, it"s cultural subtleties that count

Mandarin has already been taught in some British colleges. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

French has been the initial foreign language for the English given that the Norman Conquest. Should the English now switch their consideration to understanding Chinese? It would definitely be sensible for a lot more English individuals to know the language of the world’s second greatest economic climate, but it would also be foolish for England to quit learning the language of our nearest continental neighbour with whom we share centuries of typical historical past.

Many universities and some schools previously offer you Chinese for these who want to research it, and students currently make their alternatives. In truth, spoken Chinese is much less fearsome than its track record. College students get utilised to the 4 tones – where rising, falling or level intonation can alter the which means of a word – and cope reasonably well with the distinct assortment of consonants.

There are not several similarities amongst Chinese and European vocabulary, but in which it will get really difficult is the creating technique. There is no different to studying hundreds of characters to read even a easy text. This is why Chinese authorities designed an alphabetical equivalent, pinyin.

French, by contrast, employs the same alphabet as English, give or consider a handful of accents, and we share a great deal of very equivalent words even if they can at times have diverse nuances. Spoken French has its issues for English learners, including the rolled R and the pinched U, even though the French rather appreciate an English accent.

The troubles come with grammar functions such as the conjugations of verbs, genders and agreements. Chinese grammar seems far more straightforward in construction.

Ultimately, the actual challenge in finding out one more language is to comprehend the subtleties of that means, the complicated relationships and the cultural baggage it carries with it. This is the joy and the despair of studying a new language no matter whether it begins with bonjour or nihao.

Professor Mike Kelly, former Division for Education adviser on languages and head of modern day languages at the University of Southampton

French or Chinese? Whichever you learn, it"s cultural subtleties that count

French or Chinese? Whichever you learn, it"s cultural subtleties that count

Mandarin has presently been taught in some British schools. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

French has been the first foreign language for the English since the Norman Conquest. Ought to the English now switch their attention to learning Chinese? It would definitely be sensible for much more English individuals to know the language of the world’s 2nd greatest economy, but it would also be foolish for England to cease finding out the language of our nearest continental neighbour with whom we share centuries of common background.

A lot of universities and some schools presently offer Chinese for people who want to review it, and college students presently make their options. In fact, spoken Chinese is less fearsome than its track record. College students get utilized to the 4 tones – the place increasing, falling or degree intonation can change the which means of a word – and cope reasonably effectively with the different assortment of consonants.

There are not numerous similarities amongst Chinese and European vocabulary, but exactly where it will get genuinely challenging is the writing technique. There is no substitute to learning hundreds of characters to read through even a easy text. This is why Chinese authorities developed an alphabetical equivalent, pinyin.

French, by contrast, employs the same alphabet as English, give or get a handful of accents, and we share a whole lot of extremely comparable phrases even if they can often have various nuances. Spoken French has its difficulties for English learners, such as the rolled R and the pinched U, although the French rather appreciate an English accent.

The difficulties come with grammar attributes such as the conjugations of verbs, genders and agreements. Chinese grammar seems more easy in structure.

In the long run, the real challenge in learning yet another language is to understand the subtleties of which means, the complex relationships and the cultural baggage it carries with it. This is the joy and the despair of studying a new language no matter whether it commences with bonjour or nihao.

Professor Mike Kelly, former Division for Schooling adviser on languages and head of contemporary languages at the University of Southampton

French or Chinese? Whichever you learn, it"s cultural subtleties that count

Why do academics blog? It"s not for public outreach, research shows

Bloggers are speaking collectively in a variety of international virtual widespread space, discussing their latest research projects and discovering widespread themes. Photograph: Getty

Academics are now urged to site. We are informed that possessing to publish for ordinary readers will assist us to write in plain English, clarify our concepts, enhance our reputations and expand our information as effectively as our audience. Blogging is presented to us as a way to bridge the apparent divide between academia and every person else.

We each site and not like many of our colleagues we will not require to be convinced that it is worthwhile. Nonetheless we had been much less convinced that the academic bloggers we encountered have been all in it for causes of public outreach, or to refine their thinking, and we surely weren’t convinced that they needed fame. So we set out to have a preliminary search at what was going on in academic blogs.

We had a amount of issues in setting up this tiny-scale examine. We had no funding so interviews had been out we had to depend on published blogs alone. And we had to decide what counted as an academic blog. This was not as simple as you may possibly think, given the growth of specialist and managerial roles provided inside universities right now, which often involve some type of analysis or educating. We opted for the blogger who stated an institutional affiliation, had some kind of academic goal and was linked to other academic blogs. We named the bloggers who weren’t professors, lecturers or fellows ‘para-academics’. We couldn’t get a representative sample as there is no helpful index of blogs, the numbers change all the time, and frankly, there had been just too numerous. And simply because we communicate English, our choices had to be blogs we could actually go through.

By utilizing various on-line listings of academic blogs, we ultimately compiled a record of a hundred we could use as a sample set. Of these, 49 have been from the Uk and forty from the US, five from Canada and six from Australia. 80 have been by teaching and studying academics, 14 from para-academics and six from doctoral researchers.

By analysing and categorising the content of these blogs, we established that 41% largely centered on what we get in touch with academic cultural critique: feedback and reflections on funding, greater education policy, workplace politics and academic life. Another forty% largely targeted on communication and commentary about research. The remainder covered a diverse selection, from academic practice, info and self-help tips to technical, educating and career advice.

The huge vast majority of blogs studies utilised informal essay formats and easy reporting styles of creating, but a significant proportion (forty%) also employed a formal essay fashion, not dissimilar to academic journal posts but with significantly less intrusive referencing. Interestingly, offered the rhetoric all around blogging, 73% of the content we analysed was geared for other academics, while 38% was developed for interested professional readers.

We conclude that, in this sample at least, most academics are blogging for experts peers, rather than for the public in any standard sense. Our outcomes do not coincide with what the loudest advocates of academic blogging propose we need to do. But we believe what we saw in our one hundred blogs is understandable.

Following conducting this tiny research we have come to believe about academic blogging in two methods. Firstly, a lot of bloggers are speaking with each other in a kind of giant, global virtual common room. More than at one particular table there is a lively, even angry, conversation about operating situations in academia in different parts of the globe. In a diverse corner one more group are discussing their most recent study tasks and locating frequent themes.

An additional table houses a group of senior and early career academics discussing how to land a book contract and publish a great CV. There is also a meeting going on about public policy, and this entails a variety of public and third sector individuals, as well as academics, who perform in the area.

In our sample of blogs, this common area was, by and large, a friendly and secure area. There was a generosity of spirit that marked several of the blogs we study: info and help have been freely presented and the typical barriers of disciplines, seniority and larger training ranking results did not seem to apply, at least in obvious approaches.

Secondly, we have come to see blogging as a variation of open access publishing. Academics can get to print early, share ideas which are nevertheless being cooked and stake a declare in component of a conversation with out waiting to appear in print. On blogs we can offer you commentary on the function of other people in a far more relaxed – or opinionated – way than we may do in traditional journals, where we will be subjected to the normalising gaze of peer reviewers.

Much more importantly possibly, thanks to Google and other search engines, other individuals can discover us and connect much more easily. Our opinions are out there to be critiqued by our audience – if we let them. In this our concepts can be challenged, extended or affirmed – in virtually real time.

There are indications that the types of freedoms brought by publishing, and appreciated by bloggers, could be below risk. Some universities, distinct individuals in the United kingdom, are keen to harness bloggers to their marketing drives and the affect agenda. They want bloggers to use official platforms and confine their discussions to study and great posts about academic existence.

Discussions of higher training policy and performative management will not go down well in such arenas. Other universities – far more in Australia than elsewhere – are creating rules about what academics can and can’t say in public, about their universities and their doing work lives. In this turn blogging is seen to present a reputational risk to the university and its management.

Both these moves assume that blogging is the exact same as academic appearances in print and televisual media, rather than a publication chance with academic freedom of expression similar to that discovered in far more standard journals and monographs.

We know that we have only just begun to recognize academic blogs and bloggers and we do have additional investigation planned. We are interested in talking with other bloggers about their experiences and motivations and also in tracking the corporate moves to include and control what academic bloggers can do. So observe this (new) space.

Help us update our higher education blogs network, a international directory of HE sources, commentary and evaluation. Tweet your weblog recommendations to @gdnhighered utilizing the hashtag #heblogs or e mail claire.shaw@theguardian.com

Pat Thomson is professor of schooling and director of the Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Nottingham – adhere to her on Twitter @thomsonpat. Inger Mewburn is director of research education at Australian Nationwide University – comply with her on Twitter @thesiswhisperer

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Why do academics blog? It"s not for public outreach, research shows

It"s no surprise that police were willing to spy on Cambridge students like me | Rachel Young

Hyperlink to video: Police officer to likely Cambridge University informant: ‘Try not to think too deeply about it’

Cambridge Defend Training was set up in late 2010 as portion of a huge wave of student activism, occupations, and protests towards rises in tuition charges and cuts to schooling. On 9 December 2010, as the coalition government voted in parliament to raise tuition charges, I was currently being beaten to the ground by police batons just 200 metres away. For people of us who have skilled first-hand the use of the violent force to suppress pupil dissent, it comes as no shock that the state is also inclined to resort to the underhand tactic of surveillance.

Indeed, this is not the very first time that the police have attempted to recruit spies in Cambridge to inform on fellow activists. In both situations, officers approached a person who had been the victim of an unconnected crime and contacted the police for assistance. They exploited this vulnerability to try to coerce these men and women into spying on their buddies. In latest many years we have seen that the police will go to any lengths to obtain intelligence on activist groups, like deceiving ladies into extended-phrase intimate relationships and stealing the identities of dead kids.

It is telling in this situation that the police defend their activities as the two legal and legitimate. Whilst it is handy for the police to denounce Mark Kennedy as a rogue officer, it is clear that surveillance of individuals who dare to dissent is in reality a central and schedule portion of police function. We know from our own experience of the two violent and covert repression that the police have played a vital position in enforcing austerity policies.

All more than the Uk, we are encountering the intensification of attempts by police, university management and the government to criminalise and suppress dissent in universities. In Cambridge, university management has colluded with the police to use each legal coercion and violent force against dissenting college students. Since 2010, university management has repeatedly invited police onto campus, resulting in the damage of its own college students, and has picked out and victimised individual students as ringleaders of protests, using the two punitive academic suspensions and legal proceedings. Far more recently, the university is suspected of engaging in its personal surveillance of picket lines in Cambridge for the duration of the 31 October strike by lecturers and employees.

The message students and academics have been getting from Cambridge University management, time and time once more, has been: “do not believe for yourselves if you know what’s excellent for you”. This is strikingly related to the suggestions of “Officer Smith” to “John Armstrong” to “try out not to consider as well deeply about it … you will commence tying yourself up in knots”. In spite of – or maybe since of – its cosy connection with the police, Cambridge University has refused to comment on yesterday’s surveillance revelations. Conveniently, in this distinct instance “the matter is a single for police to deal with”.

Of course, this scenario is not distinctive to students at Cambridge. Yesterday, the University of London pupil union president, Michael Chessum, was arrested, apparently for not getting gained advance permission for a protest. College students in Sussex have been banned from protesting on campus following a campaign towards the outsourcing of university jobs. Certainly, the role of universities as spaces of creativity, dissent and training for all is under risk, not only from cuts to funding and the rise in student debt, but also the repressive techniques of the government, police and university management.

Despite these multifaceted attempts at repression, we are witnessing a resurgence of student activism not noticed since 2010. As staff salaries are reduce and the government threatens to privatise pupil loans, college students, academics and workers are organising to fight back towards the commodification of our education. We refuse to be intimidated by these coercive and underhand techniques, and will proceed to resist – in our universities and on the streets.

It"s no surprise that police were willing to spy on Cambridge students like me | Rachel Young

"Hey bitch" someone yelled out a car window. It"s what I"ve come to expect | Natalie Sharif

A protester at a Slutwalk demonstration in Toronto. Photograph: Mark Blinch/Reuters

“Hey bitch!” an individual yelled.

“Biiitttch!” I heard once more from the automobile.

Music blared from within I pretended not to notice. Do not give them the satisfaction, I thought. Never do anything you may regret. So I stood there till the vehicles stopped whizzing past, pretending to ignore a vehicle of boys yelling insults.

When the light modified, I hurried across the street, received into my university dorm area, and misplaced it.

I was furious. Being lowered to an insult while walking residence from class is infuriating. But what actually received beneath my skin was that incidents like this look commonplace. Whilst surprising in the moment, it isn’t going to feel sudden to be named a “bitch” and “whore” by a passerby, to be whistled at provocatively or to be talked about as if I am an object. It’s just portion of life.

Even though I do not always feel each and every insult I hear, in excess of time, it builds up and is draining.

In accordance to Confidence Coalition, 57% of rock music videos portray females as intercourse objects, victims, unintelligent, or refer to them in a condescending way. Well-known television displays this kind of as the Massive Bang Theory relatively center about the “wise” group of guys versus the “dumb” woman. Although they have added intelligent female characters, when hanging out with the unintelligent blonde, even the females with PhDs mentally degenerate and give into their “basic animalistic instincts”. Dove’s analysis exhibits that only four% of women around the world contemplate themselves “stunning”, and only 11% of girls are cozy employing the word “stunning” to describe themselves.

When we are bombarded by abusive verbiage, objectifying language, indifferent attitudes, and blatant stereotypes, we begin to anticipate it. We even begin to use the slurs ourselves or worse, believe the lies. It transpires discreetly in excess of time but, for so many of us, our self-assurance commences to be undermined. Very first by the messages all all around us, then in our personal voice. Unconsciously, we finish up believing that we need to be skinner, “sexier”, dumber. It really is self-perpetuating and limiting as we deprive ourselves of good ideas, determination and actions.

I never believe that I am a “bitch” basically simply because some man yelled it out a window, and other girls don’t believe they are sluts simply because some woman called them that during Sunday brunch. But right after many years of hearing the same factor above and above, what else are we to feel?

As I sat in my room fuming, I realized that over the final 10 many years that I, too, let my confidence be overshadowed by this strain. I received the message that I need to be rail-thin, but nevertheless eat juicy hamburgers and fries simply because salads are not attractive. I need to be innocent nevertheless seductive due to the fact, as the mother in My Large Excess fat Greek Wedding ceremony said, “we might be lambs in the kitchen, but we are tigers in the bedroom”. Over time, I became comfy with these unrealistic and dangerous photographs of what I need to be, so comfy that it grew to become a normal portion of my final connection.

Even even though I was abroad, he made me come to feel guilty for hanging out with my friends, and yelled at me if I appeared content in pictures with other men. When he heard I would be traveling for a week, staying in the exact same hostel area as a male classmate, he belittled me. I felt like a slut simply for conversing with the opposite sex. What would otherwise have been standard behavior started to really feel like I was cheating on him. I was no longer the carefree, exciting-loving personal I was before. The continuous criticism, intimidation and manipulation wore away at my sense of self and my capacity to believe in my very own perceptions. I was afraid of what I was becoming. Only with the assist of buddies was I capable to realize the effects of his emotional and verbal abuse.

As a global local community, every person – regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or individual beliefs – has the responsibility to reevaluate the culture and society in which we reside. We so effortlessly use or accept slurs and stereotypes and then let ourselves (frequently unconsciously) to feel them to be correct. No matter how robust we are, we have to acknowledge that the items we see, hear, and say on a standard basis do have an result on us.

I never ever anticipated to be in a partnership that was so damaging. “I am strong”, I imagined. I am a college educated lady who was raised understanding how to stand up for myself. But abuse does not come with a flashing neon sign and, by means of the many years, we turn out to be complacent with our surroundings.

To be honest, I wished to shout expletives at those guys in the car. I want my ex to really feel what it is like to be stripped of his sense of self, to wake up one particular morning and not even know who he is. But in a universal context, how would this behavior be helpful to individuals who are not ready to walk away? It isn’t. All I – and all any person else – can do is stand firmly against each day belittlement. We no longer have the selection to sit idly by. Ignoring the existing will only permit the abuse, violence, and inequity to persist and intensify.

"Hey bitch" someone yelled out a car window. It"s what I"ve come to expect | Natalie Sharif